Quito

Captions

In April 2000, Quito hosted a meeting of local government
representatives from nine countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The
outcome was the landmark Quito Declaration, the first to call on the region’s
cities “to embrace urban agriculture”. At the time, food production was
widespread in Quito itself. Between 1980 and 2000, waves of Andean indigenous
migrants had almost doubled its population, from 780 000 to 1.4 million.
In inner-city barrios and settlements built on surrounding hillsides and
ravines, many of them had resorted to small-scale agriculture to feed their
families. Yet Quito’s urban agriculture was unrecognized in municipal
regulations, only “tolerated” by planners, and not considered in the programmes
of the country’s Ministry of Agriculture. Much – but not all – of that has
changed over the past 14 years.

El Panecillo is a loaf-shaped hill
200 m high in Quito’s historic centre. Most of El Panecillo cannot be
built on, owing to its steep slopes, and the surrounding area is home to some 1 900
low-income families, including many internal migrants.

It was there that a pilot
programme, launched in September 2000 and co-funded by the municipality and
international partners, helped to increase food production in home gardens,
promoted the recycling and re-use of organic wastes, and established a
community plant nursery. It also developed a microcredit system and implemented
four projects – designed with community participation – for produce processing
and marketing.

The lessons learned in El
Panecillo were used to develop a municipal programme aimed at improving the
food security of vulnerable populations in Quito’s urban, peri-urban and rural
areas. That programme, the Participatory Urban Agriculture Project (AGRUPAR),
was launched in 2002, and was initially managed by the city’s Directorate for
Sustainable Human Development. Since 2005, it has been implemented by the
municipality’s Economic Development Agency, Conquito, whose mandate is to
create an entrepreneurial, sustainable and innovative city that generates
employment and distributes wealth equitably.

Today, AGRUPAR is one of Conquito’s
most successful initiatives. It brings together some 12 250 urban and
peri-urban farmers and 380 community-based organizations, supported by local
and national government departments, universities, development cooperation
agencies and NGOs, and the private sector. Its primary focus is on enhancing
food security and promoting food processing, access to microcredit,
microenterprise management and marketing.

AGRUPAR is operational in all
eight administrative zones of the Metropolitan District of Quito. Agriculture
is practised by community groups, families and schools, in centres for the elderly,
single mothers, abandoned children, migrants and refugees, in social
rehabilitation and health centres, in centres for the disabled and in religious
communities. At last count, the project had helped establish 1 072 active
gardens – including 140 community gardens, more than 800 family gardens, and
128 gardens in schools and other institutions – as well as 314 livestock production
units. Annual food crop production is estimated at 400 tonnes.

Project participants include rural
people who have migrated to the city and for whom gardening and raising animals
is a means of surviving in an often hostile environment, and maintaining their
rural roots and traditional knowledge. Many others are underemployed workers
who take up agriculture in order to save money on food purchases and make extra
income from the sale of surpluses. Around 86 percent of participants are
women.

The average income of households
joining the project is around US$350 per month, well below the minimum
needed to feed a household, which is set at US$600. Most participants have completed
only primary school.

Joining AGRUPAR usually requires
the formation of a group of at least six people – friends, relatives,
neighbours or residents of institutions – who apply for assistance in
establishing their garden. They need to have enough space for an in-ground plot
or for microgardening, access to clean water, and the commitment and spare time
(at least 12 hours a week) needed to care for their crops.

The staff of AGRUPAR then provide
seeds and seedlings, conduct technical training on agricultural production, and
help to develop participants’ management skills. People who maintain an active
garden can access further training in nutrition, food processing and marketing,
and the breeding of animals.

Between 2004 and 2012, the project
provided training for more than 7 350 people. Services are provided under
a symbolic pricing policy, with each training session costing US$0.50 per
person. The municipality’s annual contribution to the AGRUPAR project – some
US$250 000 a year – meets the cost of training, technical advice and
logistics. It also covers part of the costs of seed, inputs and equipment, and
animals such as poultry, guinea pigs and bees. However, while Quito’s city
government remains the main source of funding, around half of investment in
productive infrastructure – such as micro-greenhouses and small sheds for
animal husbandry – comes from participants.

The project actively promotes
production that meets Ecuador’s standards for organic agriculture, which
require holistic production systems that enhance biodiversity, biological
cycles and soil health, prohibit the use of GMOs, and control pests without
chemicals. The AGRUPAR project is registered as a producer and marketer of
organic produce at national level and shares the cost of certification with
producers.

More than 90 percent of
gardens are less than 500 sq m in size, and a little over half are less
than 100 sq m. The cost of establishing a basic 100 sq m urban garden
for organic production is around US$80, including tools, seed, fertilizer,
fencing and access to water. Incorporating drip irrigation and a
micro-greenhouse costs an additional US$480. By 2013, drip irrigation systems
had been installed in 70 gardens, and growers were using around 100
micro-greenhouses.

Crops grown in the city’shuertas range from potatoes, maize and
quinoa to vegetables – mainly swiss chard, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes and
carrots – as well as aromatic plants, spices, and fruit such as lemons, passion
fruit, babaco and blackberries. Gardeners are encouraged to use environmentally
friendly cultivation practices: maintaining soil health with compost and green
manure, rotating crops, protecting soil with cover crops and live barriers, and
irrigating with potable water or harvested rainwater. Animal husbandry is
promoted as a source of income, protein and manure.

Where little land is available for
horticulture, AGRUPAR promotes alternatives such as vertical gardens on walls,
and microgardening in recycled containers, such as bottles, boxes and tyres,
which permits food production on terraces, balconies and patios.

The project estimates that about 47 percent
of garden produce is sold; the rest is kept for home consumption. Participants
earn at least US$55 a month from the sale of surplus produce and make a
further saving of at least US$72 a month on food purchases by consuming what
they grow. Total savings are 2.5 times the value of the government’s human
development voucher, which provides US$50 a month to vulnerable households.

Urban agriculture has helped
diversify the diet of urban farmers and their families. Surveys have identified
in family diets more than 100 types of fresh and processed products, including
vegetables, herbs, roots and grasses, flour and canned meat. AGRUPAR has worked
closely with a research centre to identify and disseminate potato varieties
that are better adapted to urban conditions and have high levels of zinc and
iron.

Among the environmental benefits
of urban agriculture is the conservation of biodiversity – some 50 edible plant
species are maintained in Quito’s urban gardens. In addition, each gardening
family recycles on average 12.5 kg of kitchen scraps per week as compost.
An estimated 1 820 tonnes of organic wastes are recycled each year by
AGRUPAR project participants. The increased availability of fresh produce also
means less need to transport it from rural areas, which generates fuel savings
and reduces air pollution.

As urban food producers achieve household food security, AGRUPAR
encourages them to form microenterprises based on horticulture, animal
husbandry, food processing and the production of organic inputs, and trains
them in business planning, marketing, and accounting.

In fact, adding value to surplus
production has recently become one of the most innovative features of Quito’s
urban agriculture, generating revenue and providing full- or part time
employment for half of the project participants.

Through community organizations,
urban farmers have entered various links in the value chain, not only as
primary producers but also as intermediate or final processors of products such
as meat, canned goods, dairy foods and snacks.

Many farmers now supply certified
organic chili and tomato paste to local food processing companies, and
free-range chicken meat to restaurants. Certified organic vegetables, such as
carrots, radishes, beetroot, lettuce and broccoli, are sold through farmers’
markets. Farmers’ associations offer home delivery of
organic food baskets, which contain vegetables, fruit, herbs, pickles, jams and
bread.

To help producers meet food
quality and safety standards, AGRUPAR has introduced improved processing
technologies and the use of containers, packaging and labels, and facilitated
access to higher-volume markets, such as private and public institutions.

For those urban famers who lack
the capital to invest in micro-enterprises, the project helped to establish 35 grassroots
investment societies, to which members each contribute between US$10 and US$20
in start-up capital. Thanks to the high profitability of the sale of organic
vegetables, the producers have built up savings that they invest in
greenhouses, irrigation systems and livestock.

Market opportunities are also
emerging with Ecuador’s “inclusive business” movement, which encourages large
businesses to link up with small-scale suppliers, such as farmer organizations,
provided their produce meets quality standards, is delivered on time and is
accompanied by an invoice. But those opportunities present many urban farmers
with a dilemma: entering profitable value chains creates tax obligations and
could mean the loss of the government’s monthly human development voucher.

Future development of UPA in Quito
will see an increasing focus on sustainable intensification and the use of more
productive technologies. With greater diversification and quality
certification, marketing options will expand beyond farmers’ markets to
supermarkets and specialized outlets.

Increasing the area covered by the
project will require not only greater support from local and international
partners, but also a higher level of participation by urban farmers themselves
in the provision of labour, land, materials, tools, seeds, seedlings, inputs
and basic infrastructure. Since an estimated 30 percent of urban Quito is
vacant land, development of agriculture in the city will also require a review
of its cadastre to identify municipal areas that could be allocated for
agricultural use, and measures to extend the concession of urban space to
producers.

Quito’s experience has shown that intensive agriculture is
feasible in an urban environment, and that it helps reduce malnutrition in poor
households, strengthens household food security and generates employment and
income. For the municipal government, AGRUPAR is a flagship project of its
social inclusion policy and its vision of competitive economic development.

The project’s expertise has been
used to help establish school gardens in support of the municipality’s
programme for “healthy schools”, and the Ministry of Agriculture recently
partnered with AGRUPAR in implementing the national nutrition strategy in areas
with high levels of child malnutrition.

Given Quito’s current poverty rate
of 27 percent – and projections that the city’s population will grow from
the current 2.2 million to more than 2.8 million by 2022 – agriculture
needs to become a key element in other municipal programmes for education,
health, environmental protection and social inclusion. AGRUPAR could also serve
as a model for similar programmes in other cities, and the basis for a national
policy and programme for UPA.

Yet, 14 years after the seeds of
the programme were sown in El Panecillo, agriculture in Quito still lacks a
regulatory framework that would recognize urban farmers as legitimate
stakeholders in the city’s social and economic development, and allocate vacant
urban land for food production.

While Quito’s Development Plan,
2012- 2022, calls for an equitable, sustainable and participatory city – and
envisages a “green Quito” that would improve environmental quality and help to
mitigate the effects of climate change – it makes no specific mention of urban
agriculture, or even huertas.

Continuing constraints to UPA
development in Quito reflect the absence of policy and financial support from
the national level. In Ecuador, agricultural development programmes focus on
rural areas. It is difficult for urban farmers in Quito to register their
associations, which restricts their access to land, since municipal land is
granted only to legally recognized entities.

There are no specialized services
to provide them with technical advice or credit and they are excluded from
national programmes for input supply and the regularization of land tenure. For
that reason, the project has proposed the inclusion of urban and peri-urban
agriculture in Ecuador’s food sovereignty law, adopted in 2009, which
establishes the legal obligation of the State to ensure that individuals,
communities and peoples achieve food self-sufficiency.

Farmer meets consumer at bioferias

A notable AGRUPAR innovation has
been the opening of organic produce markets – or bioferias – that have become
sources of healthy food for Quito residents and a practical example of
Ecuador’s solidarity economy. The city now has 14 one-day bioferias,
open weekly between Thursday and Sunday.

To ensure the widest possible
availability and consumption of organic food produced in urban gardens, bioferias
are located in low-income neighbourhoods and peri-urban zones, as well as in better-off
parts of the city.

Direct sale of produce through the
markets encourages fair prices and creates a high level of trust between
producers and their customers. Gardeners get to know the people who buy their
produce, while consumers see “where their money goes” and how it benefits urban
farming families.

In 2012, the bioferias of Quito
sold more than 100 tonnes of organic produce (valued at US$176 000), which
amounts to one quarter of the project’s total estimated garden production.

This city profile taken from Growing greener cities in Latin America and the Caribbean (FAO, 2014). For a copy of the report, write to: publications-sales@fao.org